Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Alex's Last Trailwrights Peak...

...will have to wait another couple of weeks.

During the descent of our Sam Adams/Adams 5 hike, I stepped in a leaf-covered hole about a mile from the parking lot. I kept walking before my brain registered my misstep and -- snap! -- I tore something (I think) between my toes and my metatarsals. The injury hurt like mad at the time, but I didn't think too much of it because, as a hiker, I'm always getting bumps and bruises. The pain was bearable as we hiked out. In the immediate days that followed, the girls and I lived our lives as usual. We did trail work with the Trailwrights organization, I ran the kids to and from their activities, and I acted as though the pain in my foot was a minor issue that would quickly clear up.

Unfortunately, the pain got worse. Last week, I could barely walk at all. X-rays show no fractures, and I'm now waiting for my MRI appointment. The doctors predict it's simply a sprain of some kind, and that I'll be back on the trails in two or three weeks. The issue is the joint between the 3rd phalanx and the 3rd metatarsal...the center of my foot at that specific point feels like someone's whacking it with a hammer. The only immediate solution is to stay off it as much as possible. Still, the doctors are optimistic I'll be fine and ready for the mountains after a few weeks of rest.

So...Alex and I have only one more Trailwrights peak to go. It'll be either Sam Adams or Adams 5 -- since we got both of them on our last hike, we can choose which one we'd like to revisit for the final summit. Alex prefers to reascend Adams 5, but, now that winter is soon here, weather, wind speed, and trail conditions will determine our final peak. We're no stranger to cold weather/icy hiking, but we'll go whichever route is safest on whatever particular day we're able to next get out there.

In the meantime, I'm slowly but surely publishing entries on our JMT blog. The girls' academic schedule is keeping us insanely busy, so the entries aren't getting posted as often as I'd like...but they are getting posted, one or two a week.

I'll post another entry on this blog once the MRI results are back and I can say, definitively, how long it will be before we can resume hiking. Alex, of course, can finish the list anytime she wants by going with someone else. I've told her I wouldn't mind if she wanted to go on and get it done. She doesn't have to wait for me. However, she and Sage insist we will do this as a team, together. That's sweet of them and honorable of Alex...Alex is aware she'll probably be the youngest person to ever finish this list -- though that kind of thing is never the motivation for anything we do, Alex does enjoy the status when it occurs organically, as it is with this list and as it did for the winter 4Ks. Having only one more to go makes her a bit antsy, but she insists on waiting for me.